This invention relates to apparatus for automatically stacking bags and loading the stacks upon wickets. Bags such as plastic bags for packaging bread and other products are typically manufactured on special equipment and then placed in stacks upon wickets for delivery to the producer of the product. A wicket is a wire device having two spaced apart arms that are arranged to be received in holes formed in the top sections of the bags. When a desired number of bags have been loaded upon the arms, rubber grommets are placed over the arms to hold the stack in place. The wickets are designed so that they are compatible with the producer's product loading equipment.
Heretofore, the loading of bags upon the wickets has been a manual task requiring the loader to tightly grasp a stack leaving the manufacturing equipment, aligning the holes in the bags with the wicket arms and sliding the stack over the arms. This type of manual operation is not only fatiguing, but also results in the stacks becoming misaligned or dropped, thus causing unwanted delays in the manufacturing process.